EA has officially announces The Sims Mobile. A mobile spin-off of the hugely popular simulation franchise The Sims, the iOS and Android game will have a soft launch in Brazil before being released ‘soon’ across the globe.

But the announcement of The Sims Mobile has also left fans and players of The Sims 4 furious, with some suggesting the mobile title is a waste of time and resources.

A Mobile Strike advert has been banned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for objectifying women. The advert features several women in bikinis playing the military-themed mobile game by the pool.

This is not the first time that the group has had to weigh in on video game matters, as the ASA also stepped in last year to rule that an ad for PC and PS4 exploration game No Man’s Sky was not misleading.

Fighting game Injustice 2 gets a new trailer focusing on its female characters. The trailer confirms that Poison Ivy, Catwoman and Cheetah will star in the game which features several superheroes and supervillains from the DC Comics universe.

The games industry speaks out against an executive order signed by President Trump that bans travel from several countries with Muslim majority populations. The order bans immigration of citizens of Libya, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen to the United States for 90 days, refugees from these countries are banned for 120 days and Syrian refugees are banned from the U.S indefinitely.

China’s LGBTQ community could prove to be a lucrative target market for mobile game developers. According to Zhu Qiming, the CEO of mobile game developer Star-G Technologies, the Chinese LGBTQ community has a “strong demand” for mobile games aimed towards them.

Covet Fashion becomes more inclusive by featuring women with diverse body types and of various ethnicities in its fan-voted Style Challenges. Blair Ethington, senior vice president and general manager of Covet Fashion explains that the team “can’t single out one standard for beauty.”

A free to play styling game by CrowdStar, Glu’s women-focused off-shoot, Covet Fashion has added 50 new female model types of different body shapes, skin tones, facial features and heights over the past year following fan feedback. The game previously featured female models with one body type and the option of six different skin tones.

Hearthstone developers are reluctant to take part in community videos as they fear harassment. Ben Brode, the game director of the popular collectible card game (CCG), says that “there is a lot of harassment” that comes with being a public face.

2016 was a fine year for female characters in video games. Between stealth sequel Dishonored 2, parkour prequel Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and hack ‘n’ slash hit Severed, there were plenty of opportunities to play as female characters throughout the year.

But 2017 will be even better, with an astonishing amount of games through the year set to feature women and girls in lead roles. We’ve managed to get the list down to 20 games with female protagonists that we’re looking forward to and you can check out the choices after the jump.